Donald writes:

Purple Hat, the nom de plume for the Fresno photographer who is one-half of the new March show at Spectrum Gallery, doesn't take photos of anything he can drive to.

This self-imposed manifesto puts him beyond the limits experienced by amateur weekend photographers content to traipse the highways and byways of the Valley seeking the glories of nature. Purple Hat prefers the kind of locales that are accessible only by sweat and calories. In a 21-day trip he took last August to the high Sierra, Mr. Hat conquered California's highest lakes by swimming (and photographing) them. The highest, situated a bit over 13,000 feet, was 51 degrees. "I was really glad when I got out of it," he says nonchalantly.

The swimming was secondary to the photography, however. Purple Hat's show, which he calls "The Source," features the artist's massive panoramic landscape views. He's joined by Madera photographer Bob Barks, whose "Terra Homini, An Exhibition of B & W Nudes" has a completely different emotional feel than P.H.'s big, enthusiastic glimpses of nature. It's an interesting combination.

When I say that Purple Hat's prints are big, I mean it. They're a whopping 8 feet wide and 3 feet high and are stitched together from multiple exposures. The technical effect is seamless, and the impact is stirring: You almost feel as if you've climbed the mountain with the artist and are standing there, huffing and puffing just a bit, as you survey the scene beside him. In his "Wanda Lake," pictured above, I'm entranced by the light: clear, hard and crisp, as if you can feel the bite in the air and the fact that you're just a little closer to the sun. What I like about Purple Hat's works is that while they're glimpses of a world that most of us will never see, they aren't made to feel exotic or otherworldly, but somehow still accessible -- just nifty souvenirs brought back from a trip taken by a guy who likely has a lot stronger calf muscles than most of us.

Barks' work is much more intimate in scope and scale. Several of his large-scale nudes reflect his fascination with masks, both literally and metaphorically. We all are hiding behind a mask of one sort or another, Barks says, and the idea intrigues him.

One model whom he prominently features in several of the works has a back story involving relationship abuse. In one photo, she sits cross-legged on sandy soil against an outcrop of rocks, the mask and an arm partially obscuring her face. The impact is psychologically dark, which is something I sensed even before learning the story of the model.

I think there's a risk of being TOO metaphorical using a prop as laden with meaning (and, for some, cliche) as a mask, and there are times when Barks seems to be striving too hard to make a point. My favorite of his nude works is one taken of a different model at a cold Northern California beach. In this view, she's stretched out defiantly beneath the sky, but instead of a contemplative pose, there's a sense of urgency and shrillness in this scene -- as if a huge, salty, frigid wave is about to douse her. Barks goes for a high-contrast effect in the photo, with the shadows in the piece going almost totally black and the model's creamy skin burnished almost to a glare. The impact is a little raw, a little grainy, a little angry. It's the image in the show that connects most viscerally.

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Felicia writes:

From the first moments of viewing Howard Statham's show at Fresno City College's Art Space Gallery, I knew I would just adore this exhibit. Statham, now 85, casts an absurdist's eye on the world. His art is surreal and humorous, like a mix of Salvadore Dali and Groucho Marx.

And, unlike the sometimes neat, sparselike look of exhibitions that line the white walls of galleries, this show has dozens of Statham's pieces splashed around the room. Edward Lund, the Art Space Gallery curator, made the choice to devote as much wall as possible to the work. Don't misunderstand. Its done in an fetching and balanced manner, not in a hapharzard mode. The art is not shown in a chronological order but is grouped according to topic. For example, Statham's faux movie posters are in one cluster, his tiny photographs of Venice in another.

The exhibit is even more fun for those who understand Statham's references to pop culture and art history. I won't spoil the fun here (I'm planning to do a story on Statham). You have to see it for yourself.

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Donald writes:

You can tell that Glen Delpit isn't satisfied with things that are flat. In the past he's often created multidimensional works, but in his latest show at Fig Tree Gallery, I've never seen him get this, well, substantial in his use of space. His "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness," an assemblage piece consisting of a series of standing panels that zig-zag from nearly one end of the room to the other, we're confronted with photos, text, found objects, vivid colors and paintings. The piece reminds me of the multi-textured display techniques used in many museums today: Instead of standard two-dimensional placards, the eye is engaged by display areas bursting with various nooks, angled surfaces and outcroppings of text and artifacts, all combining to give a busy and nearly tactile way of communicating visual information.

I like Delpit's low-key, conversational style -- and the little treasures that he hides for viewers. Consider how the the figure of the man playing the banjo on the work's first panel corresponds with a similarly painted figure far at the end -- as if they are aching to disprove the premise of the title. Or the cheery witticism painted on the back of one panel but plainly visible to the viewer: "This is the messy backside of art that you normally don't see." While the large scale of the works in this show have a certain appeal, however, I'm not sure that bigger is always necessarily better with Delpit's work.

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Felicia writes:

I've written before that Clay Mix, at 1003 N. Abby St., has brought in some wonderful exhibits that showcase the vast range of ceramics in style and artistic expression. This month's show, "Functional Forms," draws on ceramics' historical foundation, as utilitarian vessels. But the outcome is still very much an artistic one.

Ken Standhardt, for example, is influenced by Pre-Columbian Native Americans and other ancient cultures, producing his signature style of basket-like designs. They are exquisite. He uses handmade steel-tipped tools to create a texture that reminds you of woven patterns. The result are mesmerizingly balanced markings of a modern sensibility on familiar-shaped vessels.

Standhardt's pieces also included a plate, rice bowl and tumblers. Mary Law and Paddy McNeely also created these type of items in their work. Law is known for her "house pots" that were inspired by photographs that she saw of West African granaries. These pieces have names like "Bamboo-top House Pot" and "Tibetan House Pot." They are engaging in their seeeming simplicity. The McNeely pieces seen here break simplicity down even further. She uses a black matt glaze on porcelain as a way of focusing on the form itself. So you will see the clean. curved or straight lines of a bowl or a tall, bamboo-shaped vase. All in graceful, black shapes.

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Donald writes:

Nanete Maki-Dearsan's drawings and paintings have impressed me in the past. They seemed full of motion and vigor. The word I used to describe a past Gallery 25 show in 2005 was "whoosh." At that time she offered a series of huge-scale paintings depicting horses plunging into icy blue water. You could almost feel the splash.

I did not have a similar reaction at her latest Gallery 25 show, "Process and Surface." (Note that I refuse to provide the link to the gallery because the Web page is out of date, a distressing habit for Gallery 25 in recent months.) I found the show murky, sterile and muddled. Maki-Dearsan's newer work is predominantly focused on the cosmos. In both abstract and literal ways, Maki-Dearsan gives us views that range all the way from the tiniest specks of matter to the nearly unimaginable expanse of the Milky Way.

There is a whole sub-genre of "outer space" painting, and I can't begin to understand why Maki-Dearsan would choose to devote so much of her time and talent to the subject. The upshot is that it's hard to produce anything in this glossy specialty that doesn't seem cliche or static.

The most successful works in the collection are non-representational depictions of the mysteries of matter. The paintings "Matter" and "Anti-Matter," hang side by side: one of them coarse and lumpy with a gray-silver sheen, textured and substantial, incorporating nuts, bolts, nails and even a wrist-watch; the other dark and foreboding with an intense red hue seeping through. The least successful works in the collection: a literal interpretation of a spiral galaxy that seems more appropriate for the cover of a science-fiction paperback.

Maki-Dearsan is paired with Sharon Arias, who makes skin-like material from a matte medium using layered text, photographs and illustrations. She then sews these skins into various garments. The show is titled "Angst," and in some ways the show fulfills the promise of the title, with the whole set-up evoking a closed, tight, murky sensibility, sort of post-apocalyptic cavewoman meets modern department store. Performance is part of the show, as Arias transforms her gallery space into a working area in which she can sew.

I don't want to be too unkind here. And I realize that artists have a lingo all their own, and that in some circles, the more impenetrable that language is, the better. I also realize that it can be difficult to use written language in a way that effectively captures the artistic process, and that it can be tempting for artists to rely upon jargon to sound as if they are "in the club."

That said, I have to state: While Arias' technique and her resulting garments are interesting (but did not resonate either emotionally or intellectually with me), I couldn't get past her immensely pretentious and overwritten artist's statement. She manages to work in a string of cliches about the role of the archetypal pioneering/sacrificial/savior-of-humankind artist, then waxes on about the decentering of modern ideas in a Gerhard Richter-dedicated gobbledegook of swollen pseudo-academic prose. For an artist's statement, it's strikingly ineffective at forging a connection with the viewer.